僕の注意なんて、みんなの参考になるかな。一応いうけど、ヨーロッパの街角でスリにあわないように気をつけるってことかな。
I wonder if my advice will be useful to everyone. I'll say it just in case. Take care not to meet pickpockets on the street corners of Europe.

I'm sure my translation is wrong because I haven't accounted for ってことかな, and 気をつける is not an imperative.

If I had to translate literally the best I could do is:

I wonder if it's the case that you will take care not to meet ...

But that sounds ridiculous, and I'm not even sure if it's correct. How should I understand ってことかな here?

1 Answer
1

ってこと is a common way of saying ということ in spoken Japanese, and in this case it refers back to 僕の注意. What is my advice? My advice is X ということです。かな is used as a softener, the way you'd use "I guess" or "maybe" or "probably" in English.

My advice ... is you should probably watch out for pickpockets on the street corners of Europe.

Also, it doesn't really matter, but I read the スリにあう as 「スリに遭う」, with スリ referring to the crime rather than the criminal, but it translates more naturally as "watch out for/avoid pickpockets" in English.

Thanks. I understand what you're saying but I'm still a little uncomfortable. Where do you get 'should' from in your translation? There's no ほうがいい or anything like that. It's just the plain form 気をつける. Also, why does かな attach to ってこと rather than 気をつける. Wouldn't it be 'Maybe my advice is do X' rather than 'My advice is maybe do X'?
– user3856370Mar 5 '18 at 19:08

I took a lot of liberties translating this into idiomatic English. かな is a sentence-ending particle. You could also say, more literally, "My advice ... is to take care not to encounter pickpockets on the street corners of Europe." Translating the かな is hard; think of it as the equivalent of ね if that helps.
– mamsterMar 5 '18 at 21:02